Official NORAD Santa Tracker Come back Dec. 1, 2017 To see what NORAD does the rest of the year, visit us at NORAD.mil . NORAD tracks Santa Claus’ Christmas flight - NY Daily News NORAD tracks Santa Claus’ Christmas flight after takeoff from North Pole NORAD tracks Santa Claus’ Christmas flight NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Saturday, December 24, 2016, 8:29 AM Santa Claus is coming to town — and U.S. military officials know exactly when the jolly guy will get here. The North American Aerospace Defense Command is tracking St. Nick and his reindeer as they make their annual Christmas Eve trek across the globe, marking the agency’s 61st year of keeping tabs on the festive flight. Santa started the trip early Saturday with a stop in Kiribati, a island republic in the Central Pacific ocean. NORAD started tracking Santa's annual flight across the globe early Saturday. (NORAD) NORAD — a partnership between the U.S.

and Canada responsible for defending North America’s skies and monitoring its seas — began tracking Santa’s once-a-year trip in 1955 after Sears department store mistakenly printed the agency’s phone number in an ad encouraging kids to call the store for updates on Santa’s flight. The call center in a training building will be staffed for 23 hours on Christmas Eve. Other high-profile volunteers work remotely: last year, First Lady Michelle Obama volunteered, with calls forwarded to her. Santa Claus will visit every home on the planet during his marathon 24-hour flight. (Richard Thomas) NORAD will also share Santa's location on Facebook and Twitter. Last year, Santa got 1.6 million Facebook likes. Santa’s path changes from year to year, but the jolly man usually begins in the Eastern hemisphere, traveling though the South Pacific and Asia before gliding throughout Africa and Europe. Then he visits North and South America. He stops by every home worldwide, usually visiting between 9 p.m. and midnight local time — but only if the kids in the house are sleeping.

Kids can call a toll-free number, 877-446-6723 (877-Hi-NORAD) or email noradtracksanta@outlook.com to ask where Santa is on his fabled journey. With News Wire Services Why NORAD Tracks Santa : snopes.com Why NORAD Tracks Santa - - Claim: NORAD annually tracks Santa's progress because a child trying to reach Santa via a newspaper advertisement called the wrong phone number. true Example: [Collected via e-mail, December 2008] Supposedly the tradition of NORAD tracking Santa's journey on radar comes from an accident in 1955, when Sears Roebuck & Co published a "call and talk to Santa" phone number that was one digit off from a number at the Continental Air Defense Command (NORAD's predecessor). Although cute, this story smacks of urban legend to me. Was it really so easy, even in 1955, to accidentally contact a colonel at a sensitive military installation, without having to go through security or any receptionist?

Origin:Ever since the mid-1950s, generations of children in North America (and, since the advent of the Internet, children from all over the world) have eagerly turned to an annual service provided by the U.S.-Canada North American Aerospace Defense Command ( NORAD ) to help them track the progress of Santa Claus every Christmas Eve as he departs the North Pole and traverses the globe in his reindeer-driven sleigh, delivering presents to good little boys and girls around the world. NORAD's engaging well over a thousand people to provide a yearly Santa-tracking program seems to many like a rather whimsical venture for a staid defense-based agency to be engaging in. And, in fact, NORAD didn't set out to be in the business of providing real-time Santa updates every Christmas Eve: that service came about strictly by accident, the result of a misdialed number published in a local department store newspaper advertisement. Back in 1955, NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) was based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

At Christmastime of that year, a Sears department store advertisement placed in a Colorado Springs newspaper featured a picture of Santa urging children to "Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night." Unfortunately, the phone number included in the ad was either misprinted or misdialed, and a child who called ended up not on the phone with St. Nick but rather with one Colonel Harry Shoup, the officer on duty that day at CONAD. Rather than informing his juvenile caller they had reached a wrong number and brusquely instructing them to get off the line, Col. Shoup opted to play along and asked his staff to accommodate the inquisitive youngster by providing them with updates on Santa's Christmas Eve progress. The story of the accidental origins of NORAD's Santa-tracking program has been told and re-told many times over the decades. Here's how Col. Shoup's daughter related it back in 2009: One morning that December, U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations at CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command — NORAD's predecessor — got a phone call at his Colorado Springs, Colo., office. This was no laughing matter.

The call had come in on one of the top secret lines inside CONAD that only rang in the case of a crisis. Grabbing the phone, Shoup must have expected the worst. Instead, a tiny voice asked, "Is this Santa Claus?" "Dad's pretty annoyed," said Terri Van Keuren, Shoup's daughter, recalling the legend of that day in 1955. "He barks into the phone," demanding to know who's calling. "The little voice is now crying," Van Keuren continued. "'Is this one of Santa's elves, then?'" The Santa questions were only beginning. That day, the local newspaper had run a Sears Roebuck ad with a big picture of St. Nick and text that urged, "Hey, Kiddies! Call me direct ... Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night." But the phone number in the ad was off by a digit. Instead of connecting with Santa, callers were dialing in on the line that would ring if the Russians were attacking.

Before long, the phone was ringing off the hook, and, softening up, Shoup grabbed a nearby airman and told him to answer the calls and, Van Keuren said, "'just pretend you're Santa.'" Indeed, rather than having the newspaper pull the Sears ad, Shoup decided to offer the countless kids calling in something useful: information about Santa's progress from the North Pole. To quote the official NORAD Santa site, "a tradition was born." From that point on, first CONAD and then, in 1958, when NORAD was formed, Shoup's organization offered annual Santa tracking as a service to the global community. A phone number was publicized and anyone was invited to call up, especially on December 24, and find out where Santa was. Manning those phones over the years have been countless numbers of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel and their families, and for many people, turning to NORAD to find out where Santa is became something to look forward to each year. A number of recent accounts have pointed out the inconsistencies that crept into Col.

Shoup's story over the years (i.e., was it a newspaper misprint or a randomly misdialed number the led a child to call; did NORAD receive misdirected calls from multiple children or a single child) and have intimated that the whole tale was a concocted work of fiction. But the basic elements of Shoup's story (if not the finer details) remained consistent across time, and no disproof or plausible alternate version of events has been offered to contradict them. Last updated: 10 April 2016 Originally published: 23 December 2012 Tags: Thank you for writing to us! Although we receive hundreds of e-mails every day, we really and truly read them all, and your comments, suggestions, and questions are most welcome. Unfortunately, we can manage to answer only a small fraction of our incoming mail. Our site covers many of the items currently being plopped into inboxes everywhere, so if you were writing to ask us about something you just received, our search engine can probably help you find the very article you want. Choose a few key words from the item you're looking for and click here to go to the search engine.

(Searching on whole phrases will often fail to produce matches because the text of many items is quite variable, so picking out one or two key words is the best strategy.) We do reserve the right to use non-confidential material sent to us via this form on our site, but only after it has been stripped of any information that might identify the sender or any other individuals not party to this communication. Your Email Track Santa’s Christmas Eve Journey with NORAD | Parenting Home / Family Time / Activities Track Santa’s Christmas Eve Journey with NORAD NORAD Tracks Santa is a great site that kids can refer to on Christmas Eve to find out where in the world Santa is. Using a very high-tech combination of radar, satellite, Santa cam and fighter jets (yes, fighter jets!), NORAD keeps a close eye on its official radar system to collect data and then use Google Earth to broadcast his exact whereabouts to families around the world. By Jeana Lee Tahnk Notes from the Curator's Office - Tracking Santa Notes from the Curator's Office: Santa holds the NORAD emblem: Is the relationship a little too cozy? (USAF) Santa Tracking What is the real reason the U.S. government is interested in keeping tabs on the jolly old elf?

(12/06) At the climax of the holiday movie, Miracle on 42nd Street, an old man finds himself in a competency hearing because he has had the audacity to claim he is Santa Claus when, of course, everybody knows Santa Claus doesn't exist. The old fellow gets off the hook, however, when the US Postal Service delivers to him a truckload of sacks filled with letters addressed to Santa Claus. The idea is that if the US Postal Service - part of the United States government - thinks Santa is real, then he must be real. We all trust the government, right? I submit that we can no longer accept this premise as proof of the existence of Santa. In 1971 the US Post Office reorganized as the United States Postal Service, now a quasi-independent agency. Because of this we can no longer trust the agency's judgment about the existence of this merry old elf. Don't panic, however. I have a substitute for the Postal Service. An agency of the US government that has been charged with the safety and the protection of the nation itself: The Defense Department. Or, a little more specifically, the North American Aerospace Defense Command sometimes known by the acronym NORAD.

In fact, NORAD just doesn't have the backing of the United States government, it is a joint venture with Canada, so it is trusted with the well being of not only Americans citizens, but Canadians as well. Now for those of you not familiar with NORAD, these are the people working behind the 25-ton blast doors at a high-security base buried under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. If you've ever seen the movie War Games, you will remember some very serious-looking people in uniforms, bent over computer consoles with huge screens on the wall displaying maps of the world showing ICBM missiles about to obliterate every major city in North America. The real NORAD looks a lot like this (without the incoming missiles) and is charged with watching any potentially-hostile aircraft, satellite or rocket that approaches or passes over North American airspace. This means, of course, in order to do this they have to also track non-hostile aircraft. And this means that every Christmas Eve they are tracking Santa. The north entrance to NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain facility (USAF). On His Trail for Half a Century According to the story, NORAD first became associated with Kris Kringle back in 1955.

A misprint in a local newspaper accidentally directed calls meant to go to a Santa hotline (via a department store) to the Director of Operations at the Continental Air Defense agency (NORAD's predecessors). At that the Director of Operations there was one Colonel Harry Shoup. Apparently Colonel Shoup wasn't known for his sense of humor and wasn't happy about some practical joker in his office misusing the government phone system. On the second call, however, the Colonel realized the inquires were for real after he talked with the mother of one of the children. She informed Shoup about the ad and the misprint. Realizing that he was bound to get swamped with calls that night, he had them transferred to his staff and directed them to give the location of Santa to any child that called. Soon, a makeshift reindeer and sleigh appeared on NORAD's wall-sized electronic map used to track aircraft and a Christmas tradition that has now lasted over fifty years had begun. Every year NORAD received more calls. Volunteers from the NORAD staff started coming in to help handle the load and eventually major media outlets also started calling NORAD for updates.

In 1997, the service was expanded to include a NORAD Tracks Santa website ( that last year received over a billion hits. The website includes almost anything you would want to find out about the jolly old elf including his current position on "radar" and secrets about his North Pole workshop. According to the Canadian Air Force website in 2005, fighter jets were altered to capture pictures of Santa in flight. "NORAD SantaCams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras that are mounted on the CF-18 jets," said aircraft technicians at the Fifteenth Fighter Wing. "We also have some positioned at strategic places around the world to track his Yuletide journey and feed those images back to our website." These pictures are actually CGI video that show the reindeer and sleigh as they pass by such famous landmarks as the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building and Big Ben. Every hour as Santa passes each new location on his round-the-world flight on Christmas Eve, a new video becomes available for download. How does NORAD find Santa to take pictures of him? After all, he doesn't usually file a flight plan, does he?

According to documents on the website, Rudolf's nose generates enough infrared energy to show up like the rocket engine of a missile and it sets off the heat sensors on the military's early warning satellites. A NORAD command center: Serious business (USAF). Conspiracy Theory Now the Scrooges among our readers might wonder why the government is spending so much money answering calls and building websites on this subject. After all, Santa isn't really a national threat, is he? My own personal conspiracy theory is that the government has this program because they are secretly interested in Santa and envy his technology. Can you imagine a supersonic bomber drawn by hay-fed reindeer? Or having the capability to precisely target any building around the world for payload delivery (gifts or perhaps something a little more explosive�). How about the intelligence-gathering capabilities you might get if you could slip in and out of a building without leaving a trace (except for some missing milk and cookies). The possibilities boggle the mind� Perhaps I'm just being paranoid.

The truth is that all of the NORAD staff working on Santa tracking are volunteers, and commercial partners, like AOL and IBM, have picked up some of the costs involved in this project; so little in the way of taxpayer monies are involved. And it can't be much of a serious government program if some significant tax dollars aren't wasted, can it? So, Virginia, is there really a Santa Claus. Well, NORAD says there is and that's good enough for me. Now, if we can only get them to come clean on some of those UFO sightings� Copyright Lee Krystek 2006. All Rights Reserved. Updated: NORAD Tracks Santa's Path on Christmas Eve Because of a Typo - The Atlantic The Atlantic Updated: NORAD Tracks Santa's Path on Christmas Eve Because of a Typo In December 1955, a Sears ad misprinted a phone number—the North Pole's. Most Popular Print Text Size Update, 12/17/13: Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic contributor and historian extraordinaire, has passed along some of his own fascinating research into the Santa-tracking story.

First of all, he wrote in an email, It turns out that the military, and other government agencies, had been using Santa to sell their missions long before 1954. At the height of the Second World War, Eisenhower’s headquarters put out a release offering 'Christmas guidance' to war correspondents. It confirmed that 'a new North Pole Command has been formed,' that 'Santa Claus is directing operations,' and that 'he has under his command a small army of gnomes.' The censors, though, suppressed the location of Santa’s headquarters, directed that his delivery methods be described only as employing 'secret devices' or 'special scientific techniques,' and proscribed 'any mention of radar or speculation on the purpose of reindeer antennae.' Which is both weird and delightful (army of gnomes! radar antennae!), and, regardless, suggestive of the fact that CONAD had a vested interest in PR campaigns as well as military ones. It was primed, basically, to take advantage of the good cheer of Christmas for its own ends—among them, promoting its military technology. Which makes sense, and which would help explain why NORAD would have so faithfully continued the tradition year after year.

Yoni has also found, it's worth noting, disparities in the early stories that informed NORAD's, Snopes's, and other current accounts of the intercepted North Pole calls. When Shoup told his story to the LA Times in 1980, he mentioned an unlisted line that a child had accessed. In a later newspaper story, in 1999, Shoup mentioned a much more limited, Red Phone-style line, and multiple children. My retelling originates from the Snopes account of what happened, but I'd love more documentation. If you have access to that, or know anything additional about the original story, drop me an email (mgarber[at]theatlantic.com). And big thanks to Yoni for sharing his research. Update, 12/23/14: More documentation has been found! Matt Novak, at Gizmodo's Paleofuture blog, has found evidence that the NORAD story, as repeated below and as Snopes has it, is partially true but partially the stuff of myth —and, in both capacities, the stuff of savvy military PR.

According to Novak, "Yes, Colonel Shoup got a call at CONAD that turned out to be a wrong number. But it wasn't on Christmas Eve and there was no misprint in the newspaper, even though Snopes claims there was. It was just some kid who happened to get his numbers mixed up. And as for Colonel Shoup's reaction? It was more like the kind of reaction you'd expect from a military officer in charge of ordering a strike that had the potential to end life on Earth as we know it. Which is to say, Shoup was not amused. And he wasn't inundated with calls throughout the night that his men had to take." More here , and big thanks (again!) to Yoni Appelbaum for pointing out the new information. It was 1955, and Christmas was approaching, and Sears had a new idea for a yuletide gimmick . In local newspapers, the department store placed ads ... on behalf of Santa himself. "HEY, KIDDIES!" the ad read, in a greeting that would seem creepy only in retrospect.

"Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night." The ads then listed local numbers for area children to call to get some one-on-one Kringle time. Which must have seemed, if you were a kid back then, pretty amazing. A direct line to St. Nick! Kids could, finally, bypass the middlemen that stood between them and their gifts—the Post Office, their parents—and go directly to the source. And, even more directly, to that source's enormous bag of loot. You can almost hear the Ralphie Parker voice-over . Suddenly, phone calls intended for Santa were being received on a top-secret NORAD line. Like many innovations, though, Sears's frictionless Santa scheme found itself with an unforeseen problem. In the ad the company had placed in the local paper in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Sears had listed Santa's number as ME 2-6681. Which, according to Snopes , contained a typo: It was one digit off of the intended one. The number Sears had ended up printing and distributing to the city's citizens?

The one for, as it happened, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD)—the predecessor of NORAD —which, like Santa, specialized in aeronautics. And which, unlike Santa, was based in Colorado Springs. Suddenly, on Christmas Eve, phone calls intended for St. Nick were being received on a top-secret NORAD line—a line that was usually reserved for crises (which, back then, pretty much meant "Russians attacking"). When the first call came in, Colonel Harry Shoup, the officer on duty at CONAD, picked up the phone . "Yes, Sir, this is Colonel Shoup." As Mentalfloss puts it , the colonel received no reply—just silence. “Sir? This is Colonel Shoup,” he said again. More silence. “Sir?" Shoup was probably, at this point, trying not to panic. Silence on the crisis line. "Can you read me alright?” Finally, the caller spoke up. It was not a commanding officer. It was ... a little girl. And she was confused, too. "Are you really Santa Claus?" she asked. Shoup, at that point, demanded to know who was calling, Terri Van Keuren, his daughter, remembers .

He was brusque. This didn't make any sense. "The little voice is now crying," Van Keuren recalls . The voice didn't give up, though. "Is this one of Santa's elves, then?" It must be a prank , Shoup thought. But, as he scanned the room, the " stony, serious faces " of his fellow men suggested otherwise. Then it occurred to him: Lines must have, literally, gotten crossed. There must have been "some screwup on the phones." And then Shoup made a fateful, delightful decision: He decided to play along. “Yes, I am,” he answered the caller, be-elfing himself. “Have you been a good little girl?" More calls began coming in. Shoup grabbed an airman who happened to be standing nearby and told him to answer the calls, too. The direction Shoup gave, as Van Keuren remembers the story ? "Just pretend you're Santa.'" The little voice is now crying.

"Is this one of Santa's elves, then?" Soon, the pretending evolved: The CONAD staff were providing the calling children not just with bowlful-of-jelly replies to their inquiries, but also with informational updates about Santa's progress as he made his way around the world. As NORAD's Santa site puts it : "A tradition was born." The tradition has evolved, slightly, since then. In 1958, when NORAD was formed, it continued to offer a "Santa tracking" service to anyone who called in—especially on December 24. And the tracking continues. The people who answer the calls now include "countless numbers of Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel," Van Keuren notes . As of 2009, those volunteers were handling more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 70,000 telephone calls from more than 200 countries and territories. In 2011, Michelle Obama answered calls on behalf of the North Pole NORAD.

The geolocation tradition, today, also continues with the help of social media and dedicated apps ( iOS and Android !) and, in particular, the web—via noradsanta.org . Which currently locates Santa, with the help of some complex satellite triangulation maneuvers, just where you'd expect him to be: at the North Pole. And which is, as far as I can tell, typo-free. NORAD’s amazing 60-year Santa tracking history | Network World Layer 8 is written by Michael Cooney, an online news editor with Network World. NORAD’s amazing 60-year Santa tracking history North American Aerospace Defense Command has tracked Santa’s route for 60 years Network World | Dec 23, 2015 3:57 PM PT Email a friend Use commas to separate multiple email addresses From Your message has been sent. Sorry There was an error emailing this page.

Credit: Reuters +More on Network World: The weirdest, wackiest and coolest sci/tech stories of 2015 + Some of the facts I thought were pretty cool: This Christmas Eve will be the 60th year the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) will have tracked Santa Claus’s journey. Colonel Harry Shoup began the tradition in 1955, after receiving a phone call from a child expecting to reach Santa Claus. The misdirected call was the result of the child reversing two numbers of a Santa Line phone number printed in a Sears advertisement, according to the National Archives. This year, 1,250 volunteers will staff the NORAD phone lines answering questions about the trip. The volunteers are a mix of Canadian and American military personnel and Department of Defense civilians. The Santa Tracker hotline can be reached at 1(877)446-6723 starting at 3AM MST on December 24th and continuing through 3AM MST on December 25th. Official NORAD Tracks Santa apps are available in the Windows, Apple and Google Play stores. Tracking opportunities are also offered on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+.

Santa followers just need to type “@noradsanta” into each search engine to get started. Reuters Inside the North American Aerospace Defense Command Santa Tracking unit in Colorado Springs, Colorado, You can also e-mail noradtrackssanta@outlook.com for an update on Santa’s location on Christmas Eve. NORAD’s official Santa Tracker site is here . Not to be rolled over by the NORAD juggernaut, the Department of Transportation says it has “approved an application submitted by a Mr. Kris Kringle (d/b/a "Santa Claus") for special air transportation operating authority. That authority, limited to a single night.” According to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx Kringle has outfitted his vehicle, an "airborne sleigh," with an 8 RP engine and has on hand a ninth reindeer equipped with supplemental safety and navigation gear. The Federal Aviation Administration has inspected the unusual vehicle and certified its airworthiness. Hope he has a drone tracker this year too.

Here's a National Archives video of the Santa Tracker: Check out these other hot stories: “Santa, We Got Your Six!” NORAD’s Santa Tracker Goes High-Tech | Government Book Talk “Santa, We Got Your Six!” NORAD’s Santa Tracker Goes High-Tech This article is Part 2 of a two-part series on NORAD’s Santa Tracker by Government Book Talk and explores the fascinating technology NORAD uses today to keep the Abominable Snowman, the mean Mr. Grinch, and Jack Frost from spoiling Santa’s big flight on Christmas Eve. “Click here to read the popular Part 1 article, “Tracking “Big Red One”: NORAD’s Secret Santa Mission” which tells the history of how a fortunate advertising mistake in 1955 and a colonel’s heartwarming response to kids led to NORAD tracking Santa Claus. In the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)’s 58-year history of tracking Santa Claus (Santa’s call sign for NORAD is “Big Red One”), it has continued to innovate and expand its Santa-support mission with the addition of new technology. 2013 is no exception.

Background of NORAD’s Santa Tracker In Part 1 of our @NORADSanta Tracker series , we learned that NORAD’s mission of defending North America was expanded to include tracking Santa Claus’ flight on Christmas Eve back in 1955. Guarding What You Value Most: North American Aerospace Defense Command Celebrating 50 Years (available in Hardcover Print or as an eBook ) is the terrific publication documenting NORAD’s illustrious 50+ years of history and provides easy-to-follow timelines of key NORAD events along with copious color photographs, maps and snippets of history of this important organization. The publication also proudly covers the history of its favorite mission— Santa tracking— stating: “Today, using the same technology used to perform their day-to-day mission— satellites, high-powered radars and jet fighters— NORAD tracks Santa Claus as he makes his Yuletide journey around the world.” To learn what NORAD & NORTHCOM (USNORTHERN Command) do when they aren’t tracking Santa, you can also visit their Facebook page . NORAD’s Santa Tracking Innovations NORAD has been as busy as Santa’s workshop in 2013, updating their systems to provide the ultimate Santa tracking capability.

In a November 27 press release, NORAD is ready to track Santa’s flight , NORAD cites some of these innovations: From intelligence to weather, satellites to ships, missiles to manned aircraft, NORAD has a wide variety of technology and processes that are deployed to protect North America and support special missions like helping “Big Red One.” Santa Drops in for a Sneak Peek Santa dropped into the NORAD Command Center in September 2013 to get a sneak peek at some of the innovations. Said Santa during his visit: “ NORAD Tracks Santa defines my sleigh as a versatile, all-weather, multi-purpose, vertical short-take-off and landing vehicle capable of traveling vast distances without refueling. My reindeer and I call it the world’s most magical gift transporter. Ho ho ho!” Image: Santa Claus drops in for a sneak peek of the Santa Tracker preparations on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013, at the NORAD and USNORTHCOM headquarters at Peterson Air Force, Colo. Photo Credit: Michael Kucharek Santa Tracker Test Flight Reveals NORAD Technology On November 15, 2013, NORAD held a test flight incorporating all the technological know-how and innovations.

During the test flight, NORAD personnel from the United States and Canada ran through checks of the technology, systems, processes and intelligence in place that are normally used to defend against threats but during Christmas are used to help Santa Claus complete his mission. Click here to view the NORAD Command Center video of the Santa 2013 Test Flight on YouTube. The NORAD team takes their Santa Mission seriously. 😉 In the comms [communications] check during the Santa test flight, we learn that the “Intel” [Intelligence] team verified that Jack Frost and Abominable Snowman would not interrupt Santa’s important journey on Christmas Eve. The Cyber team ensured that the “anti-Grinch viral” was in place to ensure the nasty green guy doesn’t steal Christmas this year via cyber-attack. And other NORAD personnel confirmed their assessment of the “load-bearing capacity for all rooftops that Santa will be landing on.” One of the more interesting tidbits is learning of the upgrades made to ground-based radar systems that can now detect heat signatures from smaller objects in the air, “like the heat generated from Rudolph the Reindeer’s red nose.” Fighter Jet Controversy?

Strangely, the use of a fighter jet escort for Santa has generated some controversy this year, even though this is part of the NORAD Santa Tracker tradition that has been in place for years. NORAD tells kids of the fighter jets: “Did you know Santa flies faster than starlight? He flies even faster than our fighter jets and slows down for our jets to come up beside him. They tip their wings to say hello, he always waves back and then is off again in the twinkle of an eye!” However, with some new concerns on the part of a children’s advocacy group which said that the animated video on the NORAD Tracks Santa website “injects militarism into Christmas by showing fighter jets escorting Santa’s sleigh,” NORAD issued this statement on December 3, 2013: Hi Folks, We know there have been some questions about our #NORAD fighter jets escorting #Santa this year; this isn’t new. Every year we use our military satellites, radars, fighter jets and Santa Cams to track #Santa during his Yuletide journey. These are the same assets we use to provide homeland defense for North America every day of the year. We talk about this every year.

Each year, we look for ways to update the #NORAD Tracks #Santa program to keep it fresh and interesting. We have always showcased our military assets for tracking Santa on our sites. In fact, each year, the Canadian #NORAD Region (CANR), announces the names of the escort fighter pilots responsible for accompanying #Santa across Canadian skies. We know for many families that #NORAD Tracks #Santa has become part of your Holiday Traditions. We know that is a huge honor and responsibility. We are proud to track #Santa each year!

You can see the two Canadian NORAD fighter jet pilots who were designated to escort Santa through North American airspace in 2012 (see minute 2:27 on the Headquarters NORAD Holiday Message 2012 .) Said the Canadian fighter jet escort pilots to Santa Claus:“We’re going to be your escort for this fantastic voyage… We’ve got your six.” (Note: The Urban Dictionary defines this oft-used military phrase as follows: “I got your six” basically means “I’ve got your back” or “I have you covered.” Comes from the old pilot system in which directions correspond to hours on the clock, where 12 o’clock is forward and 6 o’clock is behind. Thus anyone behind you is “at your six.”) Santa Tracker Technology for Citizens on the Ground Private citizens around the world can get into the Santa Tracker action as well. These new consumer-oriented innovations from NORAD and its over 55 private partners help you become part of the worldwide Santa Claus mission: New Website: The newly redesigned NORAD Tracks Santa website, , went live on Sunday, December 1, 2013, featuring a holiday countdown, daily games and activities, videos, music and more.

Beyond a new look, features such as a 3D globe and new interactive games take advantage of today’s modern web. The site is available in eight languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese. BING Maps and Cesium 3-D: Starting at 12:01 a.m. Mountain Standard Time on Dec. 24, website visitors can watch Santa make preparations for his flight through the Bing maps and Cesium technology to show a 2D or realistic 3D, interactive, real-time view of Santa’s journey. Phone or Email: Then, at 4 a.m. MST (6 a.m. EST), trackers worldwide can speak with a live phone operator to ask about Santa’s whereabouts by dialing the toll-free number 1-877-Hi-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) or by sending an email to noradtrackssanta@outlook.com . OnStar: Americans and Canadians on the road won’t have to follow the North Star to see where Santa and his reindeer are on Christmas Eve.

Subscribers to the automobile emergency support service OnStar can press the OnStar button in their vehicles to find Santa’s location any time on Dec. 24. See how OnStar is helping NORAD track Santa on this video . Santa Cams: NORAD’s newest “Santa Cams” will stream videos on the website as Santa makes his way over various locations in North America and all around the world. Santa Tracker goes Mobile: Get the #NoradSanta apps from Windows, Android, iPhone & tablet by clicking here ! Count down to Santa’s journey and more! Image: Santa reviews the images from the new Santa Cams at NORAD headquarters. Source: NORAD. Play Reindeer Games instead of War Games NORAD Santa Tracker has a number of games and interactive features to help citizens become involved in the Santa tracking mission and enjoy the holiday season: Hairy Hipster or Jolly Old Elf? Share your own #SantaSighting & visit NORAD Holiday Hub. click here to shop our eBooks collection . Order by Phone: Call our Customer Contact Center Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5:30 pm Eastern (except US Federal holidays).

From US and Canada, call toll-free 1.866.512.1800. DC or International customers call +1.202.512.1800. Shop our Retail Store: Buy a copy of any print editions from this collection at GPO’s retail bookstore at 710 North Capitol Street NW, Washington, DC 20401, open Monday–Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., except Federal holidays, Call (202) 512-0132 for information or to arrange in-store pick-up. Visit a Federal Depository Library: Search for one of these publications in a nearby Federal depository library. [UPDATED FOR Dec. 2012]: And now, you can also buy the NORAD history publication as an eBook on Google Play or the Apple iTunes iBookstore . About the Author: Government Book Talk Editor Michele Bartram is Promotions Manager for GPO’s Publication and Information Sales Division in Washington, DC, and is responsible for online and offline marketing of the US Government Online Bookstore ( and promoting Federal government content to the public. She has been a faithful NORAD Tracks Santa fan for years!

SHARE THIS: NORAD's Santa-tracking Program Gives Us All a Reason to Believe By Sarina Houston Updated December 24, 2016 NORAD's Santa-tracking story is a story that gives us all a reason to believe during the Christmas holiday. It's been a favorite thing to do for kids and parents alike for over 50 years, and it remains one of the best examples of true Christmas spirit out there. Each year, thousands of families across the world tune in to NORAD to track Santa Clause as he delivers presents on Christmas Eve. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been the primary source for tracking Santa Clause on Christmas Eve for over 50 years, and they take Santa tracking seriously. But how did NORAD get tasked with this huge responsibility each Christmas? And how, exactly, do they do it? What is NORAD? NORAD, by the way, is an organization in charge of aerospace control and protection in North America, so it only makes sense that they're keeping an eye on everyone flying around out there. As a cooperative effort with Canada, the organization is responsible for monitoring and protecting national airspace, aircraft and other objects in space.

There are three basic functions of NORAD: Aerospace control, aerospace warning and maritime warning. Aerospace control encompasses the control of all national airspace and air defense. Aerospace warning involves keeping the nation's airspace safe from outside attacks and protecting our country from missiles, aircraft and other aerospace technologies that could interfere with national security. NORAD offices are located at Petersen Air Force Base in Colorado, side by side with the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) command offices. The Beginning of Santa-Tracking: NORAD's Santa-tracking program began entirely by accident. In 1955, NORAD was operating under the name CONAD, which stood for Continental Air Defense Command. One Christmas, a department store printed the wrong number on an ad that encouraged children to make a phone call to Santa Clause. The wrong number rang through to the (CONAD) office instead of the department store, and kids called NORAD that night asking for Santa. Colonel Harry Shoup, the program's Director of Operations, answered the phone that night. When he discovered what was going on, he was kind enough to play along, telling the children where Santa might be based on his radar data.

Colonel Shoup began a tradition that year that stuck, and NORAD employees have been watching the skies for Santa on Christmas ever since. Santa-Tracking Methods: Over the years, the NORAD Tracks Santa program has grown to include a large platform of volunteers, a website and merchandise sales, along with the actual Santa tracking event. On Christmas Eve, hundreds of volunteers gather at the NORAD Command Center to answer phones and field emails from children all over the world. Volunteers track Santa's position using radar, satellites, special Santa cameras and fighter aircraft. According to NORAD, the organization uses the North Warning System, which is a series of 47 radar systems across North America. In addition, heat sensors on satellites can detect Santa's whereabouts, as well. Fighter aircraft such as the F-15, F-16, F-22 and CF-18 fighter jets are flown to intercept Santa, making sure the skies remain safe and Santa isn't interrupted by other flying objects on Christmas. Why it Works: Today, the NTS program has hundreds of volunteers and takes thousands of calls from children on Christmas.

NORAD maintains a very large online presence, alerting the press of Santa's movements and posting his updated locations online for the world to see. NORAD also operates a website and various social media platforms, used to reveal videos and pictures of Santa Clause. The NORAD Tracks Santa website also has games for kids to play online while they wait for Santa to come. The "FAQ" section of the NTS website answers many popular questions, such as what Santa looks like, how he manages to get to everyone's house, and if he has ever been photographed by NORAD. The site also includes an aviation favorite: Santa's sleigh specifications, which tells us that the length of Santa's sleigh is 75cc (which stands for candy canes) and the weight at takeoff is 75,000 gd (gumdrops). And in case you're curious, according to NORAD, Santa has never crashed his sleigh into anything. This year, NORAD is still working hard to make sure the kids of the world know where Santa is every moment leading up to Christmas while protecting the skies over North America at the same time. How great is that? Will you be tuning in to track Santa this year? Continue Reading

Question: What US Defense Department agency is responsible for tracking Santa each Christmas eve?
Answer: NORAD